first person shooters as a training aid

[SamH]

The problem is getting enthusiastic people who can volunteer and commit to the require amount of effort. Even if it's just making a mod, rather than a full game, it will take some serious amount of work to get something as realistic as what the members here are proposing.

HL SDK is free for mod-making, I think. (as long as the mod itself is free)

The cost for Serious Engine is huge though. Although I'm not sure about costs for mod-making, rather than standalone games.
Click here for Serious Engine lincense prices

General info for HL SDK and SE:
Half-Life SDK
Serious Engine

 

[M1911]

I love the DOD mod for half-life. But an FPS for training? It's quite fun, but it isn't training.

M1911

 

[Dangus]

Licensing the Serious Engine is MUCH cheaper than licensing the Half-Life Engine. You've made the easy enough mistake of thinking that you have to license the engine to build a mod. This is incorrect. Licensing the engine gives you full source code and direct support from Croteam, but making mods for it is totally free, as is the SDK. I think the URL you'll want to look at it http://www.seriouszone.com/ I THINK, I'll have to check it later when I'm feeling less lazy.

 

[Bruce626]

Just an old guy's opinion...

Games are games and it is not like really shooting people... but someday it might be?

 

[illuminatus99]

if someone wants to make a mod I've got the modeling skills, I've been doing high-poly photorealistic modeling for about four years now, the low poly game stuff is pretty easy in comparison.

 

[Dangus]

heeeey! I need a modeller VERY badly for my mod. It's not exactly the same kinda mod as what we're talking about here, but it's gonna be fun Lets just say it's realistic combat in an alien setting, but NOT high tech.

 

[HankL]

Fun and entertainment is just that. Life and death is an entire different can of worms. If your game interfaces with a realistic firearm and records where the rounds go you may have something going.

Let me say that I'm over 50 and enjoy SWAT II , RTCW etc. but it is nothing like the same thing as going forward in the real world. Getting jumpy with your finger poised over j k l i m and page up and down are not what happens when you really need to be first in a gun fight.

 

[SamH]

Let me say that I'm over 50 and enjoy SWAT II , RTCW etc. but it is nothing like the same thing as going forward in the real world. Getting jumpy with your finger poised over j k l i m and page up and down are not what happens when you really need to be first in a gun fight.

Of course.

I think what Mr Wyatt is suggesting is a training tool for tactics, rather than physical skills. If tactics is the focus (rather than physically shooting stuff), in my humble opinion, it can be a viable training tool.

Obviously, putting the tactics into physical practice is a different can of worms. But at least it gives the user an idea of what tactics are viable and which ones are not; without having to set up MILES rigs and dummy targets, or making a mess with paintballs.

 

[Bacchus]

Rather than create a mod, how about working on a console version? Have you seen some of the newer Xbox games like Halo? Once XBox Live hits, I believe that the popularity of consoles will skyrocket.

 

[UnknownSailor]

While an FPS game won't train your real life shooting skills, it will improve your hand eye co-ordination. I've noticed that in myself. I'm grabbing stuff out of the air that I would have missed totally a couple of years ago.

Example:
Just last Monday, I was cleaning my AR, and I had the receiver standing up on the butt plate. It went to fall off the counter, and I grabbed it without even thinking about it.

In the past, I would have just smacked it on the side, and helped gravity out by giving it a healthy shove.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

SamH hit it on the head, actually.


I realize that really truly effective training can only be achieved by actually shooting, but i think that a realistically programmed FPS can ve a valuable training aid in the two other parts of a gunfight, the moving and the comminucating.